Eternal Wishing Well
by Reno Spiegel
Summary: What would have happened if the minister had been pushed just too far...? What might have happened if the pressure was too great...?


Author's Note: Don't try to place this in the series, as it really doesn't follow the plot of it. My first Trigun fic. An angsty little piece of madness.  
  
Eternal Wishing Well  
  
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Reno Spiegel  
  
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"Wolfwood..."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"I have to ask, what's with the cross?"  
  
And I knew the day would come. The day just had to come sometime, that fateful day when he would ask me this, and yet I didn't prepare an excuse. I can't tell him who I am or why I'm here, two questions I've made elaborate excuses for, and yet, the simplest thing catches me off-guard. We're standing on the brown-red sands of the desert, the second sun drooping below the horizon, ready to close its eye and wink for the last time for the night. His broomlike blonde hair wafts lightly in the breeze that blows the sand up around our feet.  
  
"What do you mean by that?"  
  
He turns his head and smiles that dumb smile, the one that says he's trying his best to understand me but I need to open up a bit more. Vash The Stampede, the sixty-billion double-dollar man, standing here asking me why I carry a cross. What other way is there to interperet it? He wants to know where I got the big metal thing on my back, easy enough. And yet I want to know, want to know how it comes out in Vashion, or buffoon language.  
  
"The cross. I mean, where did it come from?"  
  
"Chapel." I blurt it out, and I immediately recognize my mistake. His bright blue eyes question me again, of course. He still has that dopey grin on. "The Chapel Weapons Store, I mean. It's a place for priests and ministers to go for seemingly-harmless church items, so if they get a rowdy crowd, they can keep some order. Picture a Sunday morning gone wrong. What's a priest to do? Sometimes, we just have to let our minds take over and give in to that human instinct, whether God would approve or not."  
  
The flaming ball of glory in the sky sinks like a ship, and soon we're left looking at the tainted skyline, the colors varying from auburn to violet to raven-black. It looks like a canvass that someone just threw paint on. But, somehow, it turned out to be the most beautiful picture in the world. An auction could never price it.  
  
"Oh..."  
  
His voice leaves me uneasy. He either doesn't buy it, or he has a follow-up question. I want to drop down and pray it's the second one, but, of course, no dice on that choice. I run a flat hand down from my neck to my stomach, trying a bit to smooth out the suit. This suit is kind of my blue shell of lies. As long as I'm in the suit with the cross necklace on, I'm your average and-Jesus-wept-three-Hail-Mary's-the-Bible-is-the-way preacher turned bad by the corruption and greed of the world and the line of work I'm in.  
  
Or, at least, the line of work they think I'm in. A travelling preacher makes next to nothing, so, apparently, I want more and want the money to do it with. I glance over at Vash, and he's still smiling, looking so peaceful. But I know your story, Vash, and I know you're smiling just so I can't ask my questions. Sometimes, I want to slap you, and other times, I feel like hugging you.  
  
He turns and looks me dead in the corner of the eye, his face suddenly switching around and turning deathly serious. "Wolfwood, are you going to stay with the girls and I once it -- this mess -- is all over with?"  
  
I close my eyes. I dreaded that question, but once again, I expected it. I just don't want to answer it, honestly or otherwise. I just have to wait, because I know he didn't ask it, I know he doesn't want me to stay and would never even let me. I want to know that, I want to not stay, but I know he did ask. There it is, he just repeated it, too, this time with a bit of edge and wonder to it.  
  
"...I'm...not sure, Vash..."  
  
I don't care how revealing my voice has finally become. In the quickly-approaching night, I want to change into a crow and soar, high and far away. I don't want to be here, I don't want to be here especially when this man next to me learns of the truth and the false friendship. And I'm not going to be here -- screw Legato and Chapel and Knives and the other Guns, 'cause I'm leaving long before it -- when he understands what I've done, knows I've just built more onto my ironic list of sins. "At this point in the game, it's all absolutely guessing your own fate and making your own choices. And don't look forward too far, Vash. There are too many dangers here and now to keep planning ahead."  
  
Maybe I want him to be suspicious. Sure, I don't want the Humanoid Typhoon, who's been so nice to me, to die by the hands of people who hired me, but if I don't deliver, it's my ass. And, as far as I'm concerned, my ass is far more precious than Vash's, friend or not.  
  
...This isn't the way a minister should talk...  
  
I flip my lighter out, and it flares up like the flames of Hell I was taught at a young age to stray from. I run my semi-free hand, cheap cigarette clamped a bit too tight between my middle and forefingers, through my indigo hair, then turning it to rub it across the stubble on my chin. I haven't shaved in a few days. And then, after my mild inspection turning up unworthy, I light the cigarette, the end flaming up on the first drag,  
  
My life is a cigarette. Every breath I take, every push and pull I endure, drags me a bit closer to the filter -- Purgatory -- at the end. And through it all, I, the hot ashes on the end, never go out until put out or stopped by force. And then, at the end, I'm tossed away and another cigarette of life begins. Screw the circle of life, I relate to this one much better.  
  
Vash seems to understand what I mean, as he turns on his heel and walks with that dopey grace back toward town, probably going to crawl into bed and listen to the drumming of fingers on the typewriter that Mille and Meryl used for their status reports. I walk forward, looking down. Vash and I have been standing on the edge of this ridge, more of a canyon, dropping down about three-hundred feet at a deathly-steep angle. The bottom is broken up and filled with rocks and sand.  
  
I pull a final drag on my almost-full cigarette and take a look at it. The little line of my life, drifting away in the winds with every right flick of my fingers. I smile a twisted smile and shake my head, bending my knees a bit as I drop my cross behind me in the sand. After that, I make that right flick of my fingers and flip the cylindrical tube of cancer down, down, down into the canyon. I soon lose sight of it, and take another step forward.  
  
No more.  
  
My ride on this train is over.  
  
My little line of life is Codename: Terminated.  
  
I smile again, closing my eyes and spreading my arms wide. Wide enough to the point where I think I can become a crow and fly higher into the night sky than any man before me. I laugh at myself and nod. Yeah. That's my wish, God, to be a crow and fly as high as I want to.  
  
And here's my deposit.  
  
My deposit into the eternal wishing well.  
  
As I take the final step and cross the line. 


End file.
